Research, teaching and public engagement in Physics at UW–Madison
Astronomy and physics Professor Ellen Zweibel has been honored with membership in the National Academy of Sciences. Zweibel is among 120 new members — and one of 59 women, the largest group ever — elected to the academy, one of the highest honors that can be conferred on an American scientist. Members are chosen “in …
Three University of Wisconsin–Madison students, including junior Physics and Math major Gage Siebert, have been named 2021 winners of the Barry Goldwater Scholarship, considered the country’s preeminent undergraduate scholarship in the natural sciences, mathematics and engineering. As a freshman, Siebert studied the origins of life in Professor David Baum’s lab at the Wisconsin Institute for …
University of Wisconsin–Madison physics professor Victor Brar has been named a 2021 Sloan Research Fellow, a competitive award given to researchers in the early stages of their careers. “A Sloan Research Fellow is a rising star, plain and simple,” says Adam F. Falk, president of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. “To receive a Fellowship is …
The 2021 Bruno Rossi Prize was awarded to Francis Halzen and the IceCube Collaboration “for the discovery of a high-energy neutrino flux of astrophysical origin.” The Bruno Rossi Prize is awarded annually by the High Energy Astrophysics Division of the American Astronomical Society. The 2021 HEAD awards were announced last night at the 237th AAS Meeting, which is being …
Congratulations to Mark Friesen on his promotion to Distinguished Scientist! The distinguished title is the highest title available to an academic staff member at UW–Madison. Friesen joined the physics department in 2004 as an associate scientist, and has been with UW–Madison since 1998, when he began a postdoc in the Materials Sciences and Engineering department. …
A group of universities, including the University of Wisconsin–Madison, has been named the newest Physics Frontier Center, the National Science Foundation announced Aug. 17. The center expands the reach and depth of existing capabilities in modeling some of the most violent events known in the universe: the mergers of neutron stars and their explosive aftermath. …
Professor Kevin Black has been named one of the next co-coordinators of the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) Physics Center at Fermilab (LPC at FNAL), LPC announced recently. His initial appointment starts on September 1st, 2020 and lasts for two years. As co-coordinator, Black’s roles will include leading the several hundred physicists who are residents or …
As joint members of a Midwest quantum science collaboration, the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign and the University of Chicago have been named partners in a National Science Foundation Quantum Leap Challenge Institute, NSF announced Tuesday. The five-year, $25 million NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institute for Hybrid Quantum Architectures and Networks …
Congratulations to the three physics undergraduate research students who earned Hilldale fellowships for 2020-21! They are: Owen Rafferty, in Robert McDermott’s group Yanlin Wu, in Peter Timbie’s group Yan Qian, in Sau Lan Wu’s group The Hilldale Undergraduate/Faculty Research Fellowship provides research training and support to undergraduates at UW–Madison. Students have the opportunity to undertake …